Posts Tagged «falcon 9»

On Friday, December 19, SpaceX will attempt one of the most exciting maneuvers in the entire history of space travel: The first stage of the Falcon 9 rocket will try to land on a giant platform in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. Usually, the first stage just falls into the ocean, never to be used again; in this case, if the soft landing is successful, the rocket can be reused, massively cutting the costs of space launches.

Early Sunday morning, SpaceX mission CRS-4 lifted off from Cape Canaveral towards the International Space Station, carrying with it the first 3D printer that will operate in zero gravity. When the astronauts aboard the ISS use the 3D printer, they will become the first humans to ever manufacture goods away from planet Earth. It’s not quite the Moon- or Mars-based factory that we’ve always dreamed of, but it’s a very important first step towards manufacturing goods outside of Earth’s gravity, and thus the eventual colonization and industrialization of the Solar System.

At its test site in Texas, a new SpaceX rocket has exploded in mid-air. As far as we’re aware, this marks the first major failure for SpaceX’s commercial space launch program. In a statement, SpaceX says the rocket detected an anomaly and automatically initiated its self-destruct sequence. No one (and no cows) were harmed in the explosion. A commercial Falcon 9 launch, which was scheduled to put AsiaSat 6 into orbit on Tuesday, has been delayed while SpaceX analyzes the data from the failed test rocket.

Following the tenth launch of a Falcon 9 rocket last week, SpaceX is reporting that the rocket’s first stage carried out a perfect soft landing back here on Earth. This is the second time that SpaceX has successfully soft-landed a Falcon 9 rocket launch, and now Musk’s commercial space exploration company is confident enough that it can take the next, most important step: soft landing the Falcon 9 on a solid surface, so that it can be reused in future launches, instantly cutting down the cost of a space launch by tens of millions of dollars. If all goes to plan, SpaceX will attempt a soft landing on a solid surface in October, and then again in December.

Two of Europe’s largest companies, Airbus and Safran, are joining forces to fight SpaceX’s attempts to steal away their majority share of the lucrative commercial space launch business. This is one of the first times that one of the larger, entrenched, government-backed aerospace consortia has deigned to raise a quizzical eyebrow in acknowledgement at the presence of SpaceX — but it certainly won’t be the last.

Coinciding with SpaceX’s launch to the International Space Station on Friday and its (not so successful) attempt at a soft landing, Elon Musk’s company has released an awesome video of what the Falcon 9 Reusable should look like when successfully performing a vertical takeoff and vertical landing (VTVL). The video has accumulated an astonishing 2.5 million views in the last few days, which is rather heartwarming as it indicates that humanity in general shares my interest in one of the most important technologies that will be pioneered in our lifetimes: cheap, reusable space travel.

SpaceX, Elon Musk’s poster child of the commercial space travel revolution, is about to attempt the first ever soft landing of a heavy space launch vehicle. On March 16, SpaceX mission CRS-3 will lift off from Cape Canaveral on a resupply mission to the International Space Station. Usually, the massive primary stage of the rocket would fall into the Atlantic ocean after launch — but in this case, it will sprout some metal legs and use what’s left of its rocket fuel to slowly return to Earth. This is perhaps the single most important step in SpaceX’s stated goal of reducing the cost of space travel by a factor of 10, eventually leading to the human colonization of Mars.

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